About this blog

Oh word, its Ty and Jacob's totally awesome lucid dreaming blog.

Our Purpose:

With this blog my colleague Jacob and I wish to further explore, educate, and unravel, the world of lucid dreaming for ourselves and the public at large.  This topic that has been heard about by many, but only experienced by few, so we hope to help all that our curious to learn something new. We hope to provide some perspective and guidance for anyone who has had some previous experience with lucid dreams or would like to learn more about why they dream.

What to Expect:

In this blog we will post articles and other findings that we deem educational and/or interesting, and then use them to generate open discussion.  Along side of this we will be using this blog as a dream journal where we will intermittently post the descriptions of dreams we've had.

Our Interest:

Ty:  I first heard about lucid nearly a decade ago and found it to be a unique idea since it is something I had never thought about before; a world where anything is possible.  I briefly looked into it, but lost interest as the technique I found to induce them seemed painstakingly impractical.  However recently, I have begin to take interest in the topic again.  What fascinates me are the creative and practical applications of dreaming.  They are a place where your imagination can become reality and a world where creation become uninhibited, though maybe never tangible.

Jacob:  My interest in this blog is to use it as a dream journal and to use my knowledge if neurobiology to respond to the articles that Ty finds. I do not remember my dreams often so it will be nice to have a place to record the ones I can remember in a public forum. This is an attempt for me to explore a more personal side of a topic that I have studied in several classes. To this end I will leave comments on Ty's posts as well as my own dreams talking about what might be going on in terms of the concepts that I have been taught or have come across in my research. I look forward to seeing if common themes arise from my dreams and to see if Ty and I can help to further the understanding of what dreaming and lucid dreaming mean. Furthermore, I am going to try and write ridiculous (but logical) interpretations of all the dreams to show how they can been easily misinterpreted. 

Deviled Eggs (Dream 12/6/12)

All I can recall is...

I was hosting a small gathering of people whom I can't remember, I was asked by a friend if we have enough deviled eggs so I said to her, "Yeah I think we do," while walking her to the fridge.  When I opened the fridge door I said, "We've got eggs on top off eggs" while revealing to her that that half of our fridge was filled from top to bottom with cartons of deviled eggs.

The end of my dream recall.

Dream Number One (and Two)

There were two distinct dreams I can remember having last night. In one I was playing soccer again for my high school soccer team. I was playing goalie, which was odd because that was never a position I played. The team seemed to be the one from last year, as my brother (who is now a college freshman) was still on the team with all of his friends. I didn't recognize the field we were playing at, nor the team we were playing. Throughout the game I made a several saves but there were also a few lucky incidents where the ball bounced off a post or barely missed the goal. Come to think of it there is nothing to specifically denote that it was my high school team, it just felt like it was.

The second dream had to do with returning from Japan (or maybe China?) My dad was driving me home from the airport, which seemed to be on the other side of some mountains from our house. While the mountains had the distinct feel of the Sierra-Nevada range (I used to live in California) the house and town we arrived at was definitely our house in Longmont, which is just up the road from Boulder. The strange thing about this dream was that my dad was explaining to me about a bike ride that he did, and even though the locations were made up I seemed to follow along and the dream even flashed images of the locations he was mentioning. The drive back was also not any path that I can equate to real life, but seemed to be the reverse of another dream in which my family and I went on an evening hike in the same mountains. This was particularly odd as in the dream I did not remember it as a memory from another dream, but rather it just seemed to be an actual memory. There were also rapid changed in weather as we were driving, and when we arrived home both my current dog and dog that has been deceased for about two years were both there.

Dreaming and Confidence

Continuing this section of how dreaming can help a person physically, and creatively, I found another article which has suggested that in return, that many of these people feel more confident in their day-to-day life due to their dreaming experience.  This article has prompted me to look into the psychological benefits (also seen in the article posted before about PTSD) of lucid dreaming.  Another claim by the article is that lucid dreaming has helped people regain movement after strokes, this has  has prompted me to look into the medical benefits.

Reality gets a Kick

Reference:Hamzelou, J. (2011). Reality gets a kick via dream control. New Scientist, 212(2844/2845), 4-5.

On a side note, this article suggests that the movie Inception is incorrect about how dreaming and time scale works, which was disappointing to me.

dreaming and movement

I began to wonder what may help validate the concept that dreaming an action would help one to be able to perform it.  A study here shows that when a person lucid dreams of doing a specific task, that the motor sensory section of their brain lights up that, and corresponds to the same sections as when they perform the task when awake.

dreaming and the motor sensory

Reference:

Martin Dresler, Stefan P. Koch, Renate Wehrle, Victor I. Spoormaker, Florian Holsboer, Axel Steiger, Philipp G. Sämann, Hellmuth Obrig, Michael Czisch, Dreamed Movement Elicits Activation in the Sensorimotor Cortex, Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 21, 8 November 2011, Pages 1833-1837, ISSN 0960-9822, 10.1016/j.cub.2011.09.029.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211010311)

Edit (12/11/2012):

What I found most important about this article is the fact that the brain lights up while asleep similar to how it lights up for corresponding awake actions.  This gives credence to the idea that one is able to learn or practice skills in their sleep and the brains neural pathways have the ability to reinforce connections. 

dreaming and creativity

Much of the abstract art work we see today is commonly associated with hallucinogenic drugs, but this may not be the case.  Dreams can often lead/develop a persons creative abilities.  Many artist and scientist claim that their dreams are what give them their inspiration.  A surreal landscape in a dream inspiring a painting, practicing different shots for a movie's cinematography, or hearing song melodies, are all effects that various have claimed lead to their success.

This article tries to study these claims in a scientific manner, however, it shows that dream recall tends to be the most important factor for dreams' creative influence, though lucidity does help.Dreaming and Creativity

Dreaming for the Impossible

Often when thinking about lucid dreaming people think about a different reality that they could participate in. This article is great at explaining the alternate realities people are able to put themselves in and the fun they are able to have by playing with ideas that are impossible.  It also begins to look at another aspect of lucid dreaming I wish to look further into.  How lucid dreaming effects ones creative abilities, and practicing abstract thinking.

Directing your dreams.
Refernce:
Rosenbloom, S. (2007, Oct 21). Directing your dreams; adventures in bed; with lucid dreaming, if you can dream it, you can do it -- whether it's flying through the air, plucking a mean guitar or indulging your sexual fantasies. Edmonton Journal. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/253492592?accountid=14503
and another link to another article citing the same Doctor Lebarge, but gives suggestions on how to dream problem solve.
Dream and Problem Solving
Reference:
DREAM team there's a knack to lucid dreaming, and some say that once you can control your dreams, you can revolutionise your life. (2007, Nov 28). Townsville Bulletin. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/376635712?accountid=14503